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BEX WAS HAVING TROUBLEkeeping her footing in the rain.
The storm seemed to be pouring only on the palace’s front plaza, but that actually made the situation worse. Nothing in Heaven was set up to handle weather of any sort, much less torrential rain. There were no drains, no anti-slip texturing, not even an incline to channel runoff. Every floor in the White City was perfectly smooth and flat, so the water just piled up, creating massive puddles over slick white stones. Add in the raindrops slamming into her like bullets, and Bex felt like she was fighting on a Slip ’N Slide at the base of a waterfall.
If it hadn’t been working so well, she would’ve hated it. Demons were sliding and falling every time she looked up, but it didn’t matter. The war golems guarding the towers were completely gone, either washed away by the flooding or blasted to pieces by the lightning, and the bone-dragon barrage had obliterated the rows of golden lion cannons on the roof.
With the outer defenses taken care of, that left only the sorcerers inside. Iggs’s assault team had already made good headway into the palace, thanks to the Witch of the Future’s protections. Spells were flashing like fireworks through the door, but Bex could hear the roar of Iggs’s transformed wrath demon followed by the even louder sound of heavy weapons fire. The spells stopped flashing shortly after that as the bulk of the demon army began pouring into the Tower of the HighestHeaven. Bex would’ve loved to join them, but she still had an obstacle to overcome.
Despite taking more than twenty hits from the Blade of Wrath, the Prince of Fear was still on his feet. Bex had already driven him to the far end of the palace’s walled plaza, but no matter where she struck, the blows never got through. Every time she hit him, the white scales covering his body bent instead of cracking, forming a slick divot that Drox’s huge blade slid right out of.
But while that wasveryfrustrating, no armor was perfect. She hadn’t managed to cut him yet, but Drox’s blows were still knocking him around the courtyard. All that trauma had to be doing something. Bexknewshe’d heard a bone crack at least twice, but every time she was sure she’d knocked him down for good, the prince always got right back up like he hadn’t been hit at all.
He must be healing the injuries as soon as we deal them,Drox said in a voice that sounded just as frustrated as she felt.Go for the neck next. Let’s see if he can block a lost head.
“Ihavebeen going for the neck,” Bex growled, planting her boots on the slick, wet stones as she got ready to take another swing. “But he’s too damn slippery to—”
Her complaint cut off with a gasp as the prince lashed out with his white sword, forcing Bex to scramble to the right to avoid contact. That was the other reason she’d yet to land a meaningful blow. Bex could hit the prince all day, but she couldn’t afford togethit, because the prince’s white sword was a Blade of Gilgamesh. She was stronger and faster than she’d ever been thanks to the six new horns on her head, but none of that mattered if she started piling up unhealable wounds. They were at the foot of Gilgamesh’s palace. She didn’t have time to take a six-hour soak in Adrian’s tub if she broke something. The way things were right now, her only option was to win this fightflawlessly andquickly, so Bex stopped worrying about the rain and the magic and the demons fighting in the palace and focused all of her attention on the prince who needed to die.
He must’ve seen the change, because the moment Bex’s hands tightened on her sword hilt, he jumped back to put distance between them and faded into the rain. It was a classic fear-demon move, but Bex wasn’t about to be his prey. She lit herself up like a signal flare, digging deep into her frustration to blast her fire so hot that the pouring rain turned to steam before it hit her. This actually made it even harder to see, but the roaring flames expanded her other senses, specifically her sense of touch. Since the fire was part of her, Bex was able to feel the prince’s sword enter her flames a full foot away from her actual back, buying herself the split second she needed to whirl around and drive Drox into him instead.
She didn’t manage to land the stab, but Drox still hit the Prince of Fear’s curved blade, driving its tip into the water-covered ground. Bex stomped her boot on the sword to hold it there and yanked Drox up for a swing at the enemy’s center. She’d intended to go for his neck as suggested, but the prince was already yanking his weapon out from under her foot, so Bex went for what she could get and stabbed her sword into his chest instead.
Thatwas the strike she’d been waiting for. Since he’d been restored, Drox was a chopping blade again, not a thrusting one, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still run someone through. Bex had driven him straight into the middle of the prince’s white-scaled stomach and out the other side, drenching Drox in white blood. She was still savoring the satisfaction of actually doing damage for once when the prince yanked himself off her blade and danced away like being stabbed through the guts was merely a minor inconvenience. He was about to vanish again when Bex lost her temper.
“What in the Hells is wrong with you?” she bellowed, swinging Drox like a bat as she charged after him. “How do you keephealing?”
“I’m the Prince of Fear,” his disembodied voice reminded her as he faded into the rain once again. “Nightmares wouldn’t be scary if they could be killed with brute strength.”
“Don’t talk like you understand,” Bex snarled, pulling Drox into a defensive stance and fanning out her flames to catch the next attack. “That’s not your power. You’re just a thief like your father.”
“Itismy power,” the prince said from behind her, though his voice moved again as soon as Bex spun around. “I am not the oldest or most powerful, but I am the only prince to ever master Fear. My princess killed all her other princes in their sleep because they were unable to understand her.”
“Like you’d understand what aqueenwants,” Bex snarled, following the disembodied voice through the rain with the tip of her sword. “She should’ve killed you too.”
“She’ll never kill me,” the prince replied from her left before flicking to her right. “I’m the only one who can give her what she wants.”
“Obnoxious bragging?” Bex guessed as she whirled to slash through the empty air behind her.
“Peace,” the prince whispered practically in her ear. “The defeat of the gods at the hands of mere mortals left her traumatized. She was so terrified of us that when the other princes forced her to walk beside them as a princess, she killed them rather than live with the fear. I understood that, so I made her a bargain. If she surrendered her powers,allof her powers, to me, I’d never make her wake up again. I’d let her live as a senseless sword, and in return,Iwould be Fear.”
“Sounds like a lousy bargain,” Bex said as she swung her sword again. “Who’d be afraid of you?”
“Everyone,” the Prince of Fear promised. “If the Blackwood traitors hadn’t helped you, you’d be crying on your knees in terror before me, because I’m not just a prince of Gilgamesh. I’m the vessel holding the authority Ishtar herself granted to her daughter. I’meverythingthe Queen of Fear used to be before she became too scared of death to use her own powers. Now those powers are mine, and I’m going to use them to add six more horns to my father’s trophy wall.”
His sword lashed out of the rain as he finished. If Bex hadn’t been surrounded by a two-foot-thick wall of flames, he would’ve sliced the horns off her head before she could duck. Thanks to her fire’s warning, she dodged in time, but his sword still got frighteningly close. Close enough for Bex to feel that her sister wasn’t really inside the blade.
She was inside ofhim. The indestructible armor that stopped Drox’s blows didn’t come from the prince’s scales. It was the Queen of Fearinsidethe prince’s body. That’s why he’d been able to heal Bex’s damage so quickly. He was using Ishtar’s gift of regeneration just like her daughters did.
That thief!Drox roared.He has no right!
“He doesn’t,” Bex agreed, staying low as she moved both hands to Drox’s hilt. “But we’re not going to get anywhere if we keep attacking like normal. If we want to win this, we’ve got to hit him so hard that there’s nothing left to heal.” She braced her feet in the inch-deep water. “Get ready. We’re doing the strike that took down the tower again.”
That was probably overkill, but the castle-destroying blow she’d used earlier felt like the safest bet. It certainly wasn’t as dangerous as grabbing the prince in a bear hug and boiling him to death like she’d done to the first Prince of Greed or turning herself back into the sky-spanning storm of fire that she’d used to char the second. Bex was much more confident in her control these days, but she was also stronger than she’d ever been. Amistake now might burn her entire army to ash along with the enemy, but Drox always knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t lose control no matter how hard she swung him, but when Bex dug into herself for the godly power they’d used before, her hands came up empty.
“What the—” she said, spinning to the side to avoid the Prince of Fear’s slice at her shoulder. “Where’s my fire?”
It’s still there,Drox said calmly.You just can’t use it at the moment.
